Kiwi transport insurance broker tops Trans-Tasman list of 2025 elite performers

Eamon O’Connor, founding director of Tauranga-based O’Connor Warren Insurance Brokers, has been named Insurance Business’ No. 1 Elite Broker of 2025, topping the list of high-performing insurance professionals across Australia and New Zealand.

The annual list, compiled by Insurance Business, uses a data-driven assessment to recognise brokers who deliver standout performance, resilience and client service across the industry. O’Connor, whose firm specialises in transport and trucking insurance, credited the recognition to a strong work ethic and the team he’s built since launching the brokerage in 2013.

“When I started alone, I believed every client, small, medium or large, deserved to be cared for and thought about,” he says.

“If I could get my team to think the same way, in theory, that should be successful. And that theory has turned into reality. We’ve built an extremely efficient operation that is entirely client focused.”

The firm now employs over a dozen staff and was previously named Small-Medium Broking Company of the Year at the 2018 New Zealand Insurance Industry Awards.

O’Connor says the structure of the company allows the team to operate with flexibility and excellence across the board.

“I’ve got a great team of people in our business. We trust them. We’ve got a great culture. They can deal with all aspects of the business. We operate in a flat structure, with our staff considered some of the market’s top performers. We’re quite different in that regard.”

Asked what it takes to excel at the highest level, O’Connor says communication and diligence were key. “The biggest thing is making sure you’ve left no stone unturned with your clients,” he says.

“The goal is to ensure they are happy or at least satisfied following a challenging claim. It’s not always possible to get a perfect result, but as long as you have communicated well throughout the process and they understand you’ve exhausted all avenues in your professional capacity, then they remain confident in you as their broker.”

His comments come at a time when the local insurance sector is seeing market shifts. New Zealand’s industry has recently moved from a hard market — marked by rising premiums and tight underwriting — into a more competitive, softening phase.

“Your competition is starting to take a closer look at the New Zealand market, and I’m talking about insurers here,” O’Connor says.

“In a softening insurance market, rates have become more competitive. Insurers have made money over the past year following several unprofitable years and are now in a stronger position.”

O’Connor says the shift comes as welcome relief for clients in the transport and logistics industry, who have faced years of limited insurer competition and rising cost pressures.

“Transport and logistics companies had been living with a lack of competition between insurers for several years so a market shift is some respite,” he says.

He points to increased costs that have weighed heavily on operators in recent years, including supply chain delays for parts during COVID, volatile currency movements, the cost of labour and complex vehicle technologies driving up repair costs.

“Historic COVID supply chain issues delaying parts importation for claim repairs coupled with our fluctuating currency performance against the greenback and Euro have added pressure to a sector that, put simply, pays big and claims big,” O’Connor says.

With 32-year high inflation and repair costs escalating, compounded by large claim volumes following Gabrielle and the Auckland floods, insurers raised premiums to cover the increased risk.

“Premiums rose to combat the uplift in costs and catastrophe events that hit insurers,” he says.

Originally published on Transport Talk